Me too..!

I am gonna be confined to the four walls of my home for 10 whole days – don’t ask, its depressing enough. Anyways, that means I don’t have an excuse anymore not to open up the skeletons in my bookshelf. Nanopolitan has book tagged me! So here goes.

Total number of books I own: In Germany, Srijith and I co-own abt 300 odd books. But back home, in India, thanks to my father who never said No to my excessive book-buying, a whole lot more.

Last book I bought: The Great Masters. It is “a selection of the greatest painters the world has ever known, all in one authoritative, beautifully illustrated encyclopedia.” I must admit this is the first art book I have ever bought, but after visiting so many museums and having the opportunity to visit a lot more, I thought its high time I bought one. I cant vouch for art-pros, but for amateurs who just want to appreciate art a bit more, this is a great book. It covers about 15 artists from Titian to Goya to Renoir to Van Gogh, and gives a brief introduction into each artist, followed by a life chronology and then some of their famous paintings. A great primer, if you ever need one!

Last book I read: “Parallel Worlds” by Michio Kaku. If you enjoy the subject, you have probably read this by now – so I wont try and “review” it. Also, I am a bit biased when it comes to Physics and anything related. So, lets just say it was a great read.

My unfinished book: A book which I plod through, but probably wont finish, now or in the near future – “Upanishads” by S.Radhakrishnan, which I keep at my desk and read a bit of, every once in a while. Srijith still complains how he had to lug the huge book all the way from home, so I have to keep it at hand’s length – well, seriously, its still on my desk, because with my hazy memory of Sanskrit, the difficulty of reading Sanskrit in English characters and the interpretation which sometimes I cant fully relate to, its taking a really long time. But I do want to read it and havent given up yet.

Books that mean a lot to me:

The whole Enid Blyton series: I can safely say I have read them all! From exchanging books with classmates, to begging my cousins, to calling up the bookshop every once in a while to order my book, to browsing every single title in our poorly indexed townhall library – I think I have done whatever it takes to get hold on every single one of her books. And I love them – and they mean a lot to me, because they single handedly made me fall in love with books.

Urmila – it was our standard IX Malayalam textbook. I dont remember who wrote it, and thanks to Urmila Mantodkar, google is not much help either. But I remember being truly moved by it. It told the story of one of the less celebrated heroes of Ramayana – Lakshmana’s wife, Urmila. She was the forgotten heroine who lived 14 years of her married life away from her husband, for nothing that was her fault. It was an entire book on her and it was one of the first Malayalam books that truly moved me.

A fine balance – By Rohinton Mistry. Not that I love only tragedies. But this one truly tugs at your heart strings.

I will update this when I remember more – for now, I am running out of energy.

Now I think I have to book-tag five fellow bloggers. Hope you don’t mind =)

I also remember the text that you mentioned, Urmila. It was a wonderful book. There is a book called “Vamsha Saakshi” which also narrates the story of Ramayana from the perspective of Urmila. Thats also a good one.
I also tried to find out who wrote it but no luck :-(

Hi,
was doing a search on Urmila, when i came across your blog. I too studied the same text in IX, but what i was really after was the ideal women in Indian mythology, i think it was 7 or 9.. anyway, I remembered that Urmila, was one and Sita wasnt.. was wondering who the others were….

If you have the copy of urmila, that Malayalam text of 9th std, can you scan and post? I am searching for it for long…no luck…. hope you find some time for it….. also if you have a copy of 7th std book, sarkkassum poraattavum….. it was also a brilliant work….. I missed both my text….